


Damn The Winter

by Righ (Venenum)



Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Broken Hearts, F/M, death by heartache, the ones left behind, unnamed sweetheart
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-01
Updated: 2013-02-01
Packaged: 2017-11-27 19:06:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,998
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/665417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Venenum/pseuds/Righ
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There is a girl that he left behind.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Girl with the Yellow Hair

**Author's Note:**

> I didn't want to give the girl in this a name so she's easier to relate to, so pardon my dancing around the subject. Sophie's hair is such a bright blond that I couldn't help this nugget of an idea that burrowed into my mind!  
> This song reinforced it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Bq6EJnkK20  
> This song gave me the title: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-lx2mD9NlEY

They tell her he is dead and gone at daybreak. Her neatly pressed pinafore from the night before is ruined as she falls into the muddy sleet outside her parents' house, screaming his name as the entire village remains a silent tomb of onlooking grief. 

_Jackson! Jackson!_

Slapping away the hands of the parson, the man to break the news, she races all the way up the hill to the pond beside which they played as children, but the strong lumbering arms of her father that capture her at the water's edge. Green eyes blown wide by the sight of the black hole in the middle of the deep water, she is deafened by her own screams of protests and thrashes like a wild animal, calling for Jack to come back with only his name for a second time, third, fourth. The sight of the shattered ice breaks her down into a possessed creature that wants to leap through and pull him out, laughing about how terrible his sense of humour is today. He will spring onto sure-footed bare feet (as he prefers) and give a lanky bow, all white teeth and shining, deep brown eyes that twinkle with mischief.

But the ice remains cruel and sharp, her father can only hold on as she sinks into a sodden heap with cornflower-yellow hair snagged by the chill breeze, and Jack never smiles again.

 

***

 

Winter is never kind or generous. This year, it hits home with more force than ever. 

Sat by the large hearth of the town hall as the families of Burgess congregate on New Year's Eve, her shawl is loose and long pretty hair equally in disarray. The snowdrops her mother wound through expertly are coming undone though she has not moved since finding her place to the side of the demure festivities, a gown of blue ( _"A cold colour? No, look how bright and cheerful it is, just like a clear sky!"_ ) embroidered with flowers for the coming Spring. A wedding dress that will never find a use.

Nothing said to bring comfort does and no one understands how little she cares for everyone who is not her beloved childhood sweetheart. It is strange how quiet the world is without him. Children grieve as ardently as the adults and cannot be consoled in much the same fashion. They leave her alone, unnerved by how solemn she has grown over the past week. Jack's little sister walks over and takes her hand, climbing into her lap to ball up silently and watch the fire's lively flickering flames, the same tired tears unfallen in her brown eyes. Her arms gather up the cold girl, kisses placed in her hair like he used to do, a hand running up and down a tiny sleeve.

Last year, Jack was the life of the party. Running around with the antlers of his father's prized stag on his head in front of the enormous fireplace, he made everyone laugh until they cried and had mothers scolding him for setting off their sons and daughters into screaming enthusiasm as they chased him around the large table. Shrieks had echoed to the heavens, first bouncing back noisily off the rafters and thatch.  
 _  
You're funny, Jack!_

_Jack, put those down._

_You're exaggerrating, Jack!_

Putting aside the antlers as the night wore on, she recalls how he had surrendered his little sister to his parents and welcomed her into his arms, eyes shining with shy kindness, the awkwardness that he only ever showed when he was pinned under unwavering interest. He was always warm and surprisingly cosy, more so in her memory now that he is absent. They had argued under their breath which season was the best, shivers running through her easily when someone opened the main doors to seek shelter. 

_Winter is beautiful,_ had been his unwavering argument, pointy nose stuffed in the air as her hands lightly beat his chest. Grinning, he had looked at her with complete conviction. _The world is remade, everything ugly is swept under the best rug of all._

She joked that she ought to be the first to find their voice muffled, in that case, and he didn't hesitate to accuse her of fishing for compliments. Flushed, her complaints to the contrary didn't stop her sliding under an offered arm. 

Tonight, Jack's sister huddles close to the only other person whose heart is still in the process of breaking in the hopes that two halves may form a whole.

They do not.

 

***

 

The day the Overland-Frost boy's body is fished out of the pond in early Spring, she is shaking like a leaf in her mother's arms. Having refused to be relegated to the house and storming determinedly to see (his little sister has been firmly grounded back at her home, which is unfair, in both their opinions), the men manage to break the re-sealed ice and toss the huge floes to the bank. Long sticks carve through the water in quiet succession, one after the other, when finally Jack's father nudges something to the surface; it rolls over before anyone can warn her to turn away.

Lips pulled back and flesh wrinkled a sickly green, his eyes are misty and unseeing, thick hair lank and knotted with the weeds that cover his ankles. Never more than slight, the skeletal features are a cruel rictus distortion of a loving smile.

Sobbing, her mother's arms draw her away from the scene as her feet drag, reluctant to leave him.

_Jackson! Jackson, Jack ... **Jack!**_

She hates the pond and never goes ice skating there again. When his little sister first lays eyes on the shrouded figure inside the open casket later that night, the church rings with shrill screams that reverberate inside a pretty girl's skull where she stands by the door.

 

***

 

By the end of Spring, her cough is twice as worse as it was on New Year's Day. 

She sips the broth her mother nurses her with, the good, hearty rabbit stew doing little to infuse her limbs with strength. There is an ache in her chest that gets heavier as the weeks grind on, a pain behind her eyes that cannot be cried out no matter how much she gives into the urge in the dead of night on a pallet.

 _It's just so boring,_ he had once complained, swinging hands with her through the southern meadows under milky sunlight. _At least when it's Summer, the whole thing really hits you with the force of its heat! Spring piddles around, it's still soggy with none of the fun ..._

_You only like Winter because it's hard to ignore, like you._

His laughter echoes in precious memories. The abashed grin and repetitive glances back, reeling her in to brush sunny hair away from rosy cheeks.

 _I love Winter,_ Jack corrected her and her breath caught with how easy it was to count his eyelashes all of a sudden. The murmur of, _But I love other things, too_ , brushing over her lips in a warm, dry kiss that had stopped time.

She coughs in her bed and remains locked inside her thoughts instead of bothering with a world without him.

 

***

 

When Jack's little sister comes to visit, her own little brother holds her hand where they sit at the bedside. Cheerfully knitted blankets from the surrounding mothers of the town cover her legs, drawn up to her chest, and she reassures the brown-eyed child that she will be fine. It is a lingering illness, that is all.

Two tiny hands tighten for comfort, the sight bittersweet as it plays out in reverse in her mind's eye. 

 

***

 

She dies on the first day of Summer, a wasted shadow of the most beautiful girl in town, quietly and without the dramatic suddenness of Jack's demise. Everyone knows it is coming and her mother weeps as she strokes her hair, the remaining Overland-Frosts standing to one side in the doorway. 

_It's alright,_ she tells them. _I'll be with Jack, now._

Her heart gives up and calloused fingertips gently close her eyes, a smile in place that nevertheless looks blissful in relief. Tiny hands clasp one of her own and whisper a plea to tell Jack how much he is still loved and missed, if she can. If she would. _Please, please, please._

They bury her by his side, but she cannot and does not know that this is as close as she will come to being with him ever again.

She is not part of Jack Frost's story.


	2. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just a snippet.

"These are some of the oldest graves in town," says Jamie with an enthusiasm that makes Jack laugh. Wandering through the over-grown scrubs, he keeps a weather eye on the bushes and tussocks to ensure his charge does not fall through a pothole. "Gross! This one's almost completely gone!"

"Careful! I don't want you to miss out on the snow day tomorrow because you sprained your ankle."

"We're having a snow day? Cool!"

Together, they drag the weeds off a headstone protected by the elements by a greedy holly bush.

"Jackson Overland-Frost," reads Jamie, looking up to read Jack's solemn expression next. "Hey, you okay?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine," he nods. Jack ruffles Jamie's messy hair. "It's spooky that's all, little man."

He crouches to run his fingertips over the date.

**Jackson Overland-Frost  
1780-1798  
 _Beloved Son, Brother and Betrothed_**

Frowning, he looks up when Jamie exclaims there is another grave right next to it, hidden under the lowest, roughest flora. They clear it off and he is disappointed to see the resting place has all but disappeared into the earth, three-quarters of the headstone broken away with the wear and tear of time.

"Do you think it was your mom or dad?"

A quick glance around confirms three more graves with variations of his surname nearby.

"I don't know _whose_ last resting place this is," Jack wonders, crouching to reach into the hole and feel the grass at the lowest curve of the dent, lush between his fingers as buttercups run through slender knuckles.

"Weird." Jamie's innocent dismissal makes him smile. "Your, um. Maybe your girlfriend?"

There have been plenty of times over the centuries where his heart has leapt out at pretty girls, sometimes the odd boy, but he has never allowed himself to fall in love completely. It wouldn't be fair to himself, he has learned, and all he could do prior to Jamie was terrify people with his icy messages scratched over windows or left in snow. To think that there was someone, once, who loved him so unreservedly and of their own volition ...

"Yeah," says Jack, plucking the wild-flowers to neatly place them on the rotten remains of the headstone. Thoughtfully, his smile eases and lights up bright blue eyes. "Maybe."

Squealing draws their attention to Sophie careening after a butterfly ("Pretty! Pretty!") in their wake, Jamie's groan and complaining doing nothing to stop him tugging her up and brushing her down when she falls in the dirt with a subsequent sob. Jack straightens and watches fondly as leaves are picked out of her cornflower-yellow hair and she gladdens after a tight hug with her brother whom she tugs over, curious to see what all the fuss is.

"Oh, no you don't," says Jack, and he scoops her up before she can lean too far into the grave. Lifting her high so she yells with delight ("Flying! Wheee!"), he balances her on his hip and ushers Jamie ahead. "Let's get you guys back to the picnic or I know a certain Easter Bunny who'll kick my butt if you don't find at least a couple dozen of his eggs today."

"Bunny! Hop, hop, hop!"

"C'mon, Soph, I bet Jack knows how to find all the biggest eggs!"

Jamie hops in front to make Sophie laugh, but the pretty little girl's giggles are lost in Jack's cool neck where she buries a loving hug for as long as she is allowed.


End file.
